


Blush

by ididitforthedogs



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: 14daysdalovers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:35:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ididitforthedogs/pseuds/ididitforthedogs
Summary: Four times Zevran made Cleo Surana blush, and one time she made him blush. Written for day 5 of the 14 Days of Dragon Age Lovers.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Female Surana, Zevran Arainai/Female Warden
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Blush

### 1.

  
“If I may,” he said, looking up at her from the ground. “I have a proposal to make.”

“Out with it,” Alistair said from beside her.

Cleo knew that this assassin- Zevran, she supposed- was trying to save his own life. That he would say whatever he needed to save his own skin. Now that she had left the tower and gained several very threatening companions, she had encountered a lot of strangers that pleaded for their lives. She watched the other elf closely as he pleaded his case. None of the others had ever seemed so… unconcerned as to whether they succeeded.

Cleo crouched on the ground, looking Zevran over with a critical eye. “You must think I’m stupid,” she said.

He looked her boldly in the eyes, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Not at all,” he replied. “I think you are royally tough to kill, and utterly gorgeous." 

Instantly she felt the tips of her ears and cheeks burn, and if it hadn’t been for the staff in her hand, she would have tipped over backwards. As it was, she cleared her throat and stood back up, trying to act nonchalant, but she could tell that he reaction had not gone unnoticed by him. She lifted her chin in the air, trying to will the blush away before anyone else noticed.

“Oh, and flattery is supposed to get you anywhere?” Morrigan, from behind her, scoffed. “Do not believe a word he says.”

“The Maker believes in second chances,” Leliana said. “We should allow him to redeem himself.”

Alistair stepped to her side. “I’ll follow your lead,” he said quietly.

Cleo crossed her arms in front of herself. “You’ll need to answer some more questions, first,” she said.

Zevran smiled up at her. “Of course, Grey Warden,” he said, and a small, strange rush ran through her stomach when she saw the look on his face. He already knew she was going to say yes.

### 2.

  
Denerim was a big city, much bigger than Cleo had ever known in the Circle. There were people everywhere, humans, elves, dwarves, and she even thought she could spot a few qunari. It was a bustling, thriving city, and she was paralyzed inside its web. Everyone seemed to know where they were going, even the children. Supposedly she had a map to Brother Genetivi’s home, but even if she had the space to examine it, it was impossible to decipher.

“I thought you said that you had never been in Denerim before,” Cleo said to Zevran, struggling to keep up with him through the throngs of people.

“That is true,” he said. “This is my first time here.”

She frowned. “Then how do you know your way around?” The pressure of all the people around her was like a magical pulse in her head. She could feel the minor aches and pains from the people around her, calling to her the way serious ones did in battle, and it occurred to her that she hadn’t been in a crowd since she had started fighting for her life.

He laughed, loud enough for her to hear it over the din of voices, but she could only see the braid of his hair disappear in the throng of people. “I don’t! The trick, my dear, is to walk with purpose.”

Just walk with purpose, she told herself, but someone on her right jostled her into the person on her left, who cursed her for knocking over her basket of clothes. She struggled to dodge and weave between people, but they were surrounding her, hemming her in on all sides. She bit the inside of her cheek, hard, standing on her tiptoes and looking around for him. She gripped her staff at her side, letting magic leak out of her hands to dissipate into it, instead of an uncontrolled emotional blast, but the pressure was crushing her lungs--

\--and then Zevran grabbed her hand and pulled her aside, and they were in a small alleyway, several degrees cooler and darker. Cleo doubled over, hands on her knees, panting, struggling to keep breathing.

“Here,” Zevran said, holding a skin of water in front of her face. 

She drank deeply, her fingers digging into it as she fought to keep her hands out of fists. She passed it back to him, mumbling a thanks.

Zevran leaned on the wall next to her, his gaze pointed to the crowd they had escaped, and they were both quiet for a long moment.

When Cleo had finally caught her breath, she straightened. “Sorry,” she said.

Zevran looked at her. “It is no matter,” he said. “I had been wanting to get you alone for some time now.” He gave her a pointed look and she laughed.

“You are impossible,” she said.

“On the contrary, I am frequently told how easy I am,” he said, winking. “Come now. I believe the good brother is awaiting our arrival, yes?”

Cleo looked past him at the crowd and took a deep breath. “Yeah. Let me just look at the map first.” She pulled it out of her bag and smoothed it out on her legs before holding it up. “So… Genetivi is here,” she said, tapping the red mark on the map.”

Zevran reached across the map to point at a different site. “And we are here,” he said. “If we follow this road here…” As he moved, his arm brushed across the neckline of her top, and heat flooded her face, though she tried vainly to tamp it back down.

“Right. Let’s go then,” she said, rolling up the map and putting it away before Zevran noticed anything. When she stood back up, he was waiting for her, one hand outstretched.

She glanced at his hand and then his face, a question in her eyes.

“We simply cannot have you getting lost again,” Zevran said. “Fear not, not even the angriest of noblewomen will keep us from our target.”

Cleo cracked a smile. “I don’t think Genetivi would appreciate being called a target, but I get your point.” She grabbed his hand, and they headed back into the crowd, her heart feeling just a bit lighter.

### 3.

  
Cleo lay next to Zevran, their clothes piled haphazardly in the corner while a small flicker of magelight danced in the lantern, casting shadows across their skin. She turned her eyes toward him, drinking in the sight of him stretched out beside her, following the curves of his tattoos.

“Enjoying the view, I see?”

Her eyes snapped back up to meet his, dark and smiling. She opened her mouth, and then closed it, biting her bottom lip, trying to find the right words to say.

“Ah, I see,” he said, rolling on his side to face her. He watched her as she took him in anew. “It’s that time?”

She let out her breath. “Yeah,” she admitted. “So… what happens next?”

Zevran reached out and took her hand, rolling it over and examining it as though it was an otherworldly thing and not simply her own. “I will make this simple for you. I will ask nothing more from you than you are willing to give."

She watched his fingers skate over her palm. “And that’s it? Easy come, easy go?”

“And whyever not?” he said. “Life is short, and we must take what pleasures that we can from it.”

She fought to keep her expression neutral, to try to keep herself from blurting out anything, but she couldn’t hold it all in.

"What about love?"

She regretted it the moment she said it, and she knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say. His expression didn’t change to displeasure- no, it rarely did- but he dropped her hand and sat up, his voice hard. "I am an assassin, raised in a whorehouse. All I know is pleasure and death. Do not talk to me about love. There has never been a place for it."

“Forget I said anything,” she muttered, dropping her head forward slightly to hide the burning in her cheeks under a curtain of hair as she began tugging on her clothes. It was hardly fair for her to expect more than he was willing to give, she reminded herself. Zevran had said it himself. She pushed whatever residual feeling was rattling in her chest aside. “I didn’t mean, like… Well, I should get going, anyway. Finn’s going to take up all the space in my tent if I stay here any longer.”

“You Fereldans and your dogs,” he said lightly. “You could always move him.”

“Hardly,” she scoffed. “He’s a wardog.” 

But she couldn’t quite bring herself to look him in the eyes when she left.

### 4.

  
“And here it is, my friends,” Zevran announced, sweeping an arm across the display of food. “Antivan cuisine. Surely not as good as is in Antiva City, of course, but we must make do with what we have.” After yet another night of Alistair’s stew, Zevran had stood up and insisted that he would show the rest of them what real cooking could taste like. It had taken some time for him to gather all of the ingredients, but finally the night had come, and Zevran had promised to deliver. He had allowed no one to see exactly what it was he had prepared, protesting that Antivan food was best enjoyed when prepared by an Antivan, and he could trust no one else to properly “filet the dragon” which was apparently a saying in Antiva, though Cleo had her doubts.

“What’s this?” Cleo asked, picking up a small piece of food and rolling it between her fingers. “None of this looks familiar. Well, maybe the bread.”

“Ah, now that--”

Cleo absent-mindedly popped it into her mouth as Zevran started his explanation, but he quickly trailed off when he saw what she had done. An amused expression passed over his face. “Well, I am certain that Cleo will be able to tell us about it momentarily.”

“It tastes…” The outside was doughy, but the inside was a little spicy. She took a sip of her drink. Scratch that, it was very spicy. Sweet Maker, it was spicy. “Oh,” she gasped, gulping down another drink.

Oghren guffawed. “I thought she would have been accustomed to a little Antivan spice by now.” He elbowed Sten, who was sitting next to him and looked supremely uninterested.

“I can still hear you, you know,” Cleo spluttered, her face aflame from the spice and embarrassment.

“The camp is small enough as it is,” Oghren said. “We can all hear you two going at it like a couple of nugs.”

"Oghren!" Cleo spluttered, trying not to spray the others with her drink.

Morrigan let out a low chuckle. “The dwarf is right.”

“You-- you’re on the other side of camp!” Cleo took a long drink, trying to hide the blush on her face.

“Please, there is no reason to mock her,” Leliana protested. “Not while she is like this.”

“Once again, just a burning mouth, not deaf,” Cleo said, gulping down another swallow. “Why didn’t you warn me, Zevran?”

His eyes traveled over her, and she felt heat rush to her face again. “And deny you the experience? No, some things are better enjoyed unexpectedly than denied.”

Sten reached out and took the same morsel that Cleo had, and ate it in one smooth motion, all eyes on him now.

Wynne shook her head, disappointed, and Oghren started laughing again, while Alistair wordlessly slid him another drink. Sten remained stony faced and impassive for a long beat. Then, silently, he ate another.

Zevran laughed loudly. “I am glad you approve, my qunari friend.”

Cleo took a deep breath in through her nose as the fire in her mouth slowly abated, glancing at Zevran out of the corner of her eyes. There was an easiness to his demeanor, something she saw so rarely and only during the sleepless nights together. She pushed the jealousy to the pit of her stomach. 

_Easy come, easy go._

### 5.

  
Zevran had never once slept through the night. Even the slightest noise woke him, whether it was the crunching of a stick underfoot or a sigh as his companion stirred in their sleep. Any noise could be a sign of danger- at first it was a sign that he was about to undergo more Crows training. Then it meant that his job had turned sour. And now… well, now it meant that one of his compatriots was awake, and he still could not shake the feeling that everything was going to come crashing down around him. Things were coming to a head- Arl Eamon had already arrived at his Denerim estate, but they had needed to make a detour and traveled alone. Eamon would summon a Landsmeet and soon after that their quest would be over, and he would be adrift, tethered to nothing and no one. Unless, somehow, she still wanted a companion. Unless, somehow, she still wanted him.

In Zevran’s experience, it was always best to assume the worst.

So when he heard Cleo shift in her sleep, his eyes remained closed and he carefully regulated his breathing on instinct. If Cleo attacked him, he would be able to react faster than her and counterstrike… not that she was likely to do that. Cleo, who had found a way to forgive everyone around her, who had welcomed a murderous golem, a perpetually drunk dwarf, a caustic witch of the wilds, and yes, even the assassin sent to kill her. Zevran was always telling her to be more cautious with her trust- "After all, not all would-be assassins are as ridiculously good looking and charming as I am." She laughed him off each time and continued to expect the best of others.

If she ever stopped being so trusting, he would break.

He didn’t want to think about that anymore.

Cleo snuck an arm around his waist, nuzzling her face into his back. He could tell by the hitch in her breath that she was awake now. Strange that he had become so accustomed to her breathing that it is something he knew instinctively now. He considered "waking up" for her, possibly trying that new position from the other day when she moved her hand up, pressing against his chest and pulling their bodies together tightly.

"I love you," she whispered into his back, her voice full of reverence and awe, and he knew instantly that he was never meant to hear those words. The words settled around his shoulders like a heavy blanket, pressing into his skin the way her fingertips pressed against his heart.

His entire face began to burn-- he didn’t even know that could happen to him anymore. He forced the muscles in his body to relax, wary of alerting her, but there was only one thing he could think:

_This was not supposed to happen._


End file.
